Columnist Jeff German: Rosenthal revises Las Vegas history

LAST WEEK'S gala honoring the first inductees into the Casino Legends Hall of Fame brought back fond memories for many in attendance.

For a few short hours, as a packed house at the Tropicana hotel-casino honored some of their favorites of yesteryear, it was a return to a time of old when Las Vegas was a warm and personable place to visit.

The induction of the late Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack was billed as the highlight of the evening.

But also among the many honorees were such beloved entertainers as Shecky Greene, Sam Butera, Keely Smith and the McGuire Sisters, who still are around to enjoy being immortalized on the Strip. All were thrilled to be on hand.

Even controversial Bob Stupak, who strangely was recognized with the likes of the late Howard Hughes, Hank Greenspun and Benny Binion as one of the visionaries of Las Vegas, was soaking up the attention. Stupak later confessed to the audience that when he first heard he was being singled out, he wasn't sure if he was being inducted or indicted.

Ah, the good times. Lately, they've been on the mind of a former Las Vegan who earned a more notorious reputation on the Strip.

Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, a dominant player in Las Vegas when the mob was sucking cash out of casinos faster than you could pull a one-armed bandit, offers his version of the "good old days" on his website.

Rosenthal is regarded as a brilliant handicapper and promoter, but he's a bit of a revisionist when it comes to his Las Vegas history.

On his website, he gives us background on himself while touting his experience in the gambling world. He talks about how he hobnobbed with the stars on his local television show in the 1970s and later became the subject of Martin Scorsese's hit movie, "Casino."

Rosenthal, who began his career as an oddsmaker on the streets of Chicago, explains that his knowledge of the casino industry runs deep, having operated four Las Vegas casinos, "including the world-famous Stardust," in the 1970s.

But he forgets to say that he ran these casinos for some of the nation's most violent mob families. He also forgets to say that the largest slot-skimming scam in Nevada history took place under his watch at the Stardust. And he forgets to tell us that he was forced out of the gaming industry because of that multimillion-dollar scheme and was ultimately listed in Nevada's Black Book of undesirables banned for life from casinos.

Mystery has followed Rosenthal in the last 20 years, as he has tried to resurrect his odds-making career from Boca Raton, Fla. Top Mafia bosses were sent to prison for wielding hidden influence at Rosenthal's casinos, but Rosenthal never spent a day in jail. In the early 1980s, as his casino empire crumbled, he survived a car-bombing. To some, that sheds light on how the mob came to view him during the height of the federal probe into organized crime's presence on the Strip.

One has a feeling that, though Rosenthal considers himself a visionary of Las Vegas, he may never make it to the Casino Legends Hall of Fame. He may not care.

But enough haggling over history.

On his website, Rosenthal counts himself as among those who subscribe to the theory that Las Vegas was better when the mob ran the show.

"The owners of the hotels and casinos of old, mandated their employees to treat each and every guest as if they were the owners," he writes. "Today, guests are a statistic to fill a room or a number enabling the company to achieve a bottom line projection."

To some degree Rosenthal is right. But again, he forgets to point out that today's Las Vegas offers the visitor a far greater entertainment, dining and shopping experience than even he could have imagined 20 years ago.

Rosenthal predicts a new era for Las Vegas in the next millennium.

It will be "an era in which an over-built and over-hyped city will revisit the concepts which made it great in the first place," he says. "A place in which the visitors will roll sevens more often than the house, and the house will be delighted."

That indeed might happen. But it will occur without Rosenthal, the one-time caretaker for the mob and king of hype.

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